Introduce a FLAT $$$ tax - not even a percentage of one's income, just a flat $$$ amount, and call it that. No different from everybody paying the same price for a bottle of coke @ the store. Or should shops start asking customers their income, and then charge them accordingly?

How about a flat rate tax on wealth instead. Why should the ultra-rich be able to sit there not earning, not paying taxes, and just getting the benefit of everything they own whilst we have to defend their property, police their stupid legal disputes, deal with their garbage, clean up the results of their wastefulness etc. etc. etc.

First, all productive assets are wealth. Factories, land, etc. (We can then discuses if gold, big homes, fancy cars, and artwork is a productive asset, but that is for another time). So, you are taxing productive assets - which reduces their value. People will be less interested in investing in long term projects because it will be worth less.

If you do the math, because you are paying taxes every year, anything involving capital because much more expensive. It's very hard to invest in that climate. A wealth

So, how often do you plan on taxing that wealth? Say, somebody has $10 million, are you going to tax it every year? At what tax rate?
The problem with taxing wealth is that that makes saving impossible for everyone, even those who do not have very much.

I disagree completely. The current problem is a result of people NOT saving enough. The savings rate in the U.S. was much higher in the 50s and 60s than it is today. If people were not so badly overleveraged, the financial crisis would never have happened. People should not need to borrow money to buy a car, they should have sufficient savings to do so out of thier savings. While there may be occassions where the financially prudent thing to do when buying a car is to finance it, ideally one should not be i

I'm not sure how that's relevant to my comment. This is good. They will have more wealth to pay taxes on. At the same time they will have more wealth to be happy with. This would be actively encouraged by a system in which wealth was flat taxed.

Because you implied that their wealth isn't benefiting society at all, which is ridiculous. In fact what your idea would encourage is people keeping their wealth off the books, which is only easy if it's in the form of cash or precious metals, in which case it does do absolutely nothing.

Oddly enough, that's what's currently happening. Anyone who does have cash is holding on to it or investing in gold.

No I didn't. At most I implied that their wealth was benefitting society relatively less than the equivalent amount of wealth in the hands of poorer people, but that point of view would be irrelevant to what I said. What I actually said was that these people cost society much more than poor people. What I would go on further to say is that they aren't mostly willing to pay their way with Warren Buffet appearing to be an honourable exception.

Introduce a FLAT $$$ tax - not even a percentage of one's income, just a flat $$$ amount, and call it that.

Right, so the person making $12,000 a year, who needs every single penny of their paycheck can pay exactly the same amount of tax that Bill Gates pays?

And what of people who have no income? Shall we drag them into jail for not paying their taxes, because they have absolutely no way to pay for it?

On second thought, your plan succeeds extraordinarily well in making being poor illegal; in fact, way much better than any of the numerous laws (like vagrancy) that local governments pass to making being homeless illegal. And then, once all the poor people are in jail, they'll never be able to afford paying their taxes then, so we can just keep them locked up eternally... or maybe we could just kill them all, since they're never going to get out of the grave we've already dug for them anyways. Then, maybe we could just make a protein paste out of them. You are absolutely a brilliant person, you are.

Surely since the poor are more likely to use social services they should be taxed more than the rich. Why should Bill Gates pay his $13,000 [outsidethebeltway.com] flat rate when he is unlikely to use madicare, medicaid or the state school system?

Too moderate? I'm perplexed as to how anyone could even write that based on my comment...

Does my comment say something I don't understand it to say? Surely it only speaks towards the negation of a single idea... rather than espousing any personally held ideas, so perhaps it is just the vacuum of argument allowing people to insert their own ideas into my words?

Honestly, my personal position on this matter is "tax the rich more", as they're afforded more benefits from society than any poor person will ever ex

I'll counter: Why should the poor pay a significantly larger *percentage* of their income for healthcare than the rich?

Answer: They shouldn't. In order for healthcare to be affordable for all, the costs MUST be distributed across the whole of the population. The rich contribute more (in terms of dollars, not percentage) because they make more. It's certainly not hurting the rich, as they seem to be able to continue getting richer. The problem is the poor not being able to afford healthcare. The percentage o

The person making $12,000 pays a much higher percentage of their income in sales tax than a rich person does.

And what's with this class envy nonsense? Does Buffett have class envy because he thinks the rich should pay more income tax?

Those making millions make those millions due to their own hard work, sure, but they also make them thanks to the infrastructure, security, and educational system maintained by the government, the poor, and the middle class. They should have to pay their 30+%, since they benefit from the government more then anyone else. Without government to defend them and maintain order, the rich would quickly become very poor.

Many do, many don't, but all rich people's wealth was generated by others' labor. Sam Walton could not have gotten rich without an army of low-paid workers. That idiot Donald Trump could have never become rich without being born into wealth.

... that was my point. The rich depend on the government, the poor, and the middle class much more than the government, poor, and middle class depend on the rich. It's an imbalance that should be fixed.

Without government to defend them and maintain order, the rich would quickly become very poor

Ah yes, just like ye olden days, where the rich nobles cried out for strict national governance to better protect them from the peasants because without a stronger government to protect them what was a rich man with resources, arms, and mercenaries to do?!

I'm saying that those who expect people w/ higher incomes to pay more have class envy, regardless of what they're actually earning. It's the attitude that qualifies it.

Or maybe you don't understand other people's thinking nearly as well as you think you do.

Statistically, it's been demonstrated that the top 5% of all income earners pay 50% of all taxes, while the bottom 70% pay less than 5% of all taxes. And it's not even like the top 5% has 50% of all the income/wealth, however one wants to see it - it's more like 20%.

Any time you start a statement with "Statistically...", you'd better be ready to back up your claims with something more than a bunch of hand-wavey numbers. Speaking as a statistician, I'd like to see your sources and your methodology. If you have any.

Also, your statement that without the government defending them, the rich would quickly become poor, you're suggesting that the government is/should be an extortion racket, like the mafia.

Um, no, he's describing the way the world works. Without effective government, out-and-out extortion rackets -- with all of the government's power and ruthlessness, bu

But that's true whenever anybody pays for anything. When you buy, say, a car, you are automatically paying a much higher percentage of your income on the car than Buffet is.

That's exactly my point... The poor pay a higher percentage in sales tax, so the rich pay a higher percentage in income tax. Nothing wrong with that...

And whoever said anything about Buffet having class envy - I'm saying that those who expect people w/ higher incomes to pay more have class envy, regardless of what they're actually earning. It's the attitude that qualifies it.

Read what I wrote again, and read what Buffett wrote. You're saying that Buffett has class envy (because he thinks the rich should pay more in taxes). Regardless, stop with this class warfare nonsense. It's not class warfare, it's not punishing the successful, it's about making everyone pay their share of taxes. When Warren Buffett pays a lower % in taxes t

Except that we only have Warren Buffett's word for that (he has not released his tax returns). When we look at the numbers from the IRS, we discover that the high earners do indeed generally pay a larger percentage of their income [usatoday.com] (even when capital gains are calculated in) than those who earn less.
The problem with the original poster's idea of a flat amount that everyone pays is that if it is set at an amount that everyone can pay, it does not add up to anywhere near enough money. The federal budget is s

So if that person making $12,000 a year pays $2 for a bottle of coke, Gates should pay what? $2,000? $2,000,000? Incidentally, good job with the class envy & the scare mongering.

A person making $12,000 a year is likely buying their $2 bottle of coke on foodstamps provided by the government in the first place. So, really, they're paying about $0 for a bottle of coke out of their income.

And this "class envy" that you purpose is not an imagined thing, nor an opinion. What happens to people who cannot pay taxes? Oh yeah, they rack up a bill so high that they can't pay it, and eventually either settle for something that they can pay, or end up in jail for tax evasion. So, let me ask you

Right, no one could possibly live off of $1000 a year. You know, looking back on it, if you exclude foodstamps, I've earned not a single penny in income. I don't live under a bridge (because I have carrying friends and family, who wouldn't let that happen), and get food entirely through foodstamps.

Your solution sounds so great, because it is so simple, but fact is that it will not actually work. It fundamentally punishes people for being poor, which is generally beyond their power to control. And it complet

(Although, if you display this kind of communication skill on your CV and in interviews, no further explanation is necessary...)

... what purpose do you have for knowing the precise reasons behind me not having any income? Perhaps I'm a housewife, who doesn't work. Perhaps I'm a disabled person, who is unable to work. The reason bears little relevance to my point at hand, that a flat value tax applied universally to all citizens would exceed the income of some individuals.

That you would insist that you have a right to pry into my life and have me justify the reason why I don't have any income is kind of offensive. (Yes, I explained i

"(Although, if you display this kind of communication skill on your CV and in interviews, no further explanation is necessary...)"
"what purpose do you have for knowing the precise reasons behind me not having any income?"

He enjoys beating down on the poor, that is clear from his stance and enjoys hearing of their misery. He also wants to justify to himself that it could not happen to him. Nothing he has said shows any insight or understanding; he instead feels better about himself and his failures by

Right, no one could possibly live off of $1000 a year. You know, looking back on it, if you exclude foodstamps, I've earned not a single penny in income. I don't live under a bridge (because I have carrying friends and family, who wouldn't let that happen), and get food entirely through foodstamps...

You've never earned anything other than food stamps? Seriously? How much longer do you expect your "carrying" friends and family to continue doing so?

As noted below, there was information missing. The lack of income comment was over the previous year. I have earned money before, and I've paid more well than my fair share of taxes. (How have I pay more than my fair share? Well, I had the opportunity for a full refund, and decided instead to not file taxes as my income had not exceeded the amount that makes filing mandatory. What you read is correct, I was below the poverty line and still paid my goddamn taxes. I walk the walk, not just talk the talk.)

I think there was a system in the older times prior to currency, where people exchanged goods and services in exchange for other goods and services directly. As it turns out that living with a brother and his bachelor roommates presents plenty of opportunity for one to justify the charity provided by providing cleaning.

As also noted, I am currently applying for disability, as I am unable to work. (Yes, I've tried.) That is why I lack any income. It's kind of difficult to have an income, when one is unable to work. (But you said you're cleaning to earn your room and board; no, I said it justifies my charity, not that it is sufficient to fully offset the monetary value that I am receiving.)

It amazes me that people in America love to jump to the assumption that anyone receiving government assistance is simply inept and lazy. As if every person earns their rightful place in society of their own achievements. As if Bill Gates were born in a cave with parents who use stone tools, yet managed to claw his way to the top reinventing everything about math and computers himself to produce Microsoft DOS... what am I taking about? Even "stone tools" is an advantage that many homo sapiens may not have even had.... or wait, maybe there's a remote possibility that Bill Gates was born into a family, where the father was a noted and well respected lawyer, and thus born with a silver spoon in his mouth. I mean, it just wouldn't be the American "conquer all" story that we so love if he were born into the top 10% of society, and clawed his way up to the pinnacle. I mean, because likely larger than 50% of the people are born into families that earn under the mean income of the society, so we obviously want to look at someone born into that disadvantaged substrate and yet managed to claw their way to the top... except, you know, they're exceedingly rare, like less than 0.01% of those born into the under 50% population, so we simply hold this dangling carrot in front of the laboring masses with sweat poisonous words of "you can get there, too! just try harder!" All the while knowledgeable that it is simply an impossibility that each person who works every day to the bone could not possibly make it into the top 10% of the population.

But then, Americans do so love that mirage in the distance... after all, we sell it like it's bottled water, and the Americans just lap it right up. "I'm going to work hard so I can be a billionaire!" Keep dreaming Jimmy... keep dreaming.

You are completely disregarding the fact that the federal government is not the only government authority that taxes people. So while $1,000 is not that big of a bite for most people with a normal income, the tax bite would be considerably more than that when you factor in state and local taxes. Additionally, there are nowhere near 200 million people in the U.S. with a "normal" or higher income. The median household income for the U.S. is around $50,000 and there are fewer than 120 million households in the

No, Bill Gates should pay absolutely nothing, because if Bill Gates had attempted to make his empire while paying a flat tax, he would be now flat broke, and most probably swinging from roof beam by the neck.

Yeah nobody's forcing you to buy food or shelter, or any of the things practically required to be employed (like communications or transportation), or any of that basic stuff that eats up almost all of your income if you're poor. Nobody's forcing you to live, you can just curl up in a gutter and die. See, no force!

Pure capitalism is the most horrific of all economic systems, because it allows for any of the horrors of any other system, as long as it's done by leaving it as your only feasible option rather than forcing. What other systems do with jackboots, an angry frown and open hostility, capitalism does with a business suit, a pearly-white smile and a liberal application of the just world fallacy.

This is why capitalism should be well-regulated. You don't want to be anywhere near pure capitalism. It's like nuclear energy: A powerful force can be good for us with oversight and moderation, or can fuck up our shit worse than anything else if we are so much as negligent.

The whole issue is that the rich are becoming richer must faster than the rest of the economy.. aka middle/lower classes.

As the rich gain money, the middle class is getting gutted, which means you have fewer and fewer people that can afford "luxury" items. As less and less money moves around and demand drops, the value of money falls out and the cost of living goes up. As demand drops, jobs start to disappear. More and more middle/lower are jobless.At some point, no one, other than the rich, can actually af

No, we aren't talking about paying for identical thinks. That's completely beside the point. If I win 1M$ a year and you win 1K$ I will certainly be able to buy things that you can't even after paying taxes... unless my taxes amount to 999K$ and yours amount to 0$, which _nobody_ is talking about. So your premise is _wrong_.

The kind of taxes we are talking about don't apply to commerce goods, because it's very difficult to let a store know how much your last year income was.

I don't know about the cost of goods, which certainly can't be policed like that. But yes, there can be proportionality on taxes, fines and the like. Finland does it [bbc.co.uk] and they don't seem to be doing too bad.

This is Slashdot. Don't you know that the rich deserve every penny that they have, and the poor CHOSE to be that way?

Right, so they deserve to be imprisoned if they don't pay the $13,000 each [outsidethebeltway.com] in tax that the flat rate would have to be to maintain current levels of revenue. The above figure assumes that children are also paying - after all they did decide whether or not to be born into a wealthy family.

They should abolish income taxes (too easy for the rich to dodge) and do it all via sales tax. Rich people buy more stuff so they'll pay more. People who are sensible with their money will pay less than the people who max out their credit cards. It's all good.

Sales tax is a lot harder to cheat than income tax and having a simple tax system will save a lot of money in itself.

How about a fixed percentage sales tax then? Not "more expensive, less percentage", but every product has the same percentage of tax. Perhaps give living essentials (i.e. milk, bread) a lower tax product, but anything not strictly essential to stay alive a fixed tax.This is how most of europe handles sales tax already.In my country (Netherlands) I pay about 20% on luxury goods (whether it's shoes or a jet airplane) and 6% on essential goods (which doesn't even include luxury food articles). There are some a

The rich actually spend proportionally much less. E.g. if you have your own estate, with your own servants and your own cooks, you have food cooked for you based on local produce. This makes a meal which would cost hundreds of dollars per person but, since it's all your own property, you don't buy it and so you don't pay sales tax.

If you or I go on holiday, we go to some resort where we pay for everything; every little bit of water you use ends up being taxed. When Richard Branson goes on holiday he flys in his own jet to his own island and the only sales taxable expense is his jet fuel. When his rich friends do the same they go to his island sometimes, and he comes to their islands in exchange other times. In a sense this is completely fair. I would get annoyed if you tried to tax me for having friends over for dinner rather than going to a restaurant, but the scale of the thing means that in the end, the really rich show much less income compared to the resources they use than you or I and pay even less tax.

I can't imagine any flat tax low enough to be reasonably asked of minimum wage workers and still be high enough to fund an entire country.The coke bottle has the same price, but you can just choose to buy a cheaper brand or different type of fizzy drink.Will people be able to pay the tax of a cheaper government brand or a different type of government altogether?

Price discrimination is not illegal and it's not uncommon. In cases where fixed costs dominate replication costs, it can be necessary to be profitable in a competitive marketplace.

Usually it doesn't happen for a bottle of coke at one store, because that's cheap and the store can't verify your wealth (I've heard of "food stamps" in the US but I'm not familiar with what they are really or if they apply here), but the store down the road which markets to people with higher salaries often has more expensive bo

It's legal, but it's hard to think of any meaningful competitive retail environment where you could actually get away with charging more to a subset of customers unless you somehow managed to provide more value than competitors charging less. If I want to charge wealthy people $5 for a can of diet Coke, but sell the same can to poor customers for a nickel, and the store next door sells it for a dollar, chances are that most of the people I'd try to charge $5 will go next door and buy it there instead.

There was a big stink years ago about the airlines and/or some of the major online retailers trying 'demographic-based pricing'.

I experienced this just the other day. I went to a local restaurant supply store and bought a bunch of stuff. Since I was a first-time customer, he gave me an instant 10% discount. No one else in the store would've gotten the discount on those or any other items even if they were first time customers as well. I was just more charismatic, I guess.:-)

It is legal, and done. Usually it's done in the name of charity in fact. KFC here in my country has a promo on at the moment where if you buy a meal over a certain amount they donate a meal to charity. Effectively - they are charging me full price, and giving the same product to somebody else for free (based on income) - not only do they do so legally, they do it as a marketing tool. The idea being that when I choose where to get take-out I may say "I would rather go to KFC and feed somebody else who is hu

The taxes are not there to pay the price of something, they are there so everyone in charged according to his or her abilities. People who get more money can pay more of that (in percent) than the poor. It is like the health system (in Europe) everyone with money pays according to his or her income and everyone gets the same insurance totally independent from the money they give. this is what a society does when they care for each other. The strong help the weak.

You'd think a government would WANT a thing like that patented...get it locked down and lawyers chasing people who used the method./Not entirely sure how you find the people infringing on your patent...

1. They think that allowing patents on tax loophole methods will actually advance the art of tax loopholes.
2. They want to be sure that their corporate buddies don't have any trouble using tax loopholes.

Bribe someone working at the IRS to look for certain "patterns" - of course, the bribe'd have to be sufficient to justify the prison sentence for "releasing" said info - but considering the probable patent infringement penalties/lawsuit payouts, one could afford a few IRS Agents every so often...

The government doesn't need patent law to enforce its ideas - it just says "no" and the thing is illegal in itself. Plus, patents would only work if the government was first to publish it, they'd be useless for closing existing holes.

Sort of. What it means is that instead of folks filing for patents on loopholes, thus making it difficult for others to copy that method (and thus at least partially closing them), Congress has gone and made is so that anyone can use any new tax loophole method (keeping them wide open).

I suppose a tax loophole is nothing more then a clever application of the law, right?So, forget about tax laws, take a simple example traffic rules.

Well, then I'm filing a patent for stopping at a red light: everyone that stops at a red light must pay me 1$.

This is exactly the same as a patent on a tax loophole: the application of laws.You must pay the patent holder for using a specific tax loophole, which is just an application of the law.Now I'm making you all paying for applying another law.

Stopping at a redlight can be considered a loophole to avoid paying the fine. Thus you should pay a royaltyNot stopping at a red light can be considered as a loophole to avoid paying the royalty, thus you should pay a royalty.

Stopping at a redlight can be considered a loophole to avoid paying the fine. Thus you should pay a royalty
Not stopping at a red light can be considered as a loophole to avoid paying the royalty, thus you should pay a royalty.

Extend for non binary decisions and enjoy!!

Quick patent it. Then nobody will be able to stop at a red light without paying you.

LOL Congress. Stand near their dinner bowl and your Congressman will spring into action. Yet Submarine Patents and Patent Trolling are still legal. The USPTO continues to approve the stupid, trivial and obvious patents and those written in such ridiculous language that no one knows what they mean. The USPTO leaves it to the courts to sort out the mess for them, with $500 an hour lawyers who will argue adamantly for whoever is paying them. (They should have a rule in Patent Law suits that half-way the lawyers change sides)

But seriously: A startup hit by a Patent Troll will spend $1M to $5M to fight it off. How does bogging down startups like this help America invent? It doesn't. Congress have known about this for years but won't do lift a finger. But a tax dodging patent? Suddenly their outraged cannot be contained!

But seriously: A startup hit by a Patent Troll will spend $1M to $5M to fight it off. How does bogging down startups like this help America invent? It doesn't.

Patents were never designed to do any such thing. It may have been post hoc rationalized as something to increase inventiveness, and honestly, I don't think there is any compelling data supporting either side.

Patents were intended to give a person an exclusive right to produce a new invention and make money off of it. Thus, patents are about greedily hording inventions and technology away from others in exchange for disclosing how they actually work, so that later (100s of years) that information would not have gone to your grave with you. (Like many kinds of stained glass that we no longer know how to make, because no one passed it on.)

It's basic purpose is to exploit greed to provide a benefit to mankind at a later date... this of course has the obvious effect of stunting the development and innovation cycle, because you can't use other people's ideas once they're actually available. I read an interesting piece about fashion, as it turns out that one cannot patent, copyright, or trademark fashion designs, and thus anyone can just steal an idea from someone else. Yet, they have a vibrant, active, and rapid development cycle. Of course it also renders old things "out of fashion" quite quickly as well, as soon everyone will have it, if it is popular enough.

It wasn't hundreds of years, the time span was originally pretty short and got extended (20 years in the US now I believe). The issue in the IT sector is that after such a long time span, the inventions are irrelevant. Nobody cares about patents that are only applicable to 5MHz supercomputers nowadays.

It wasn't hundreds of years, the time span was originally pretty short and got extended (20 years in the US now I believe). The issue in the IT sector is that after such a long time span, the inventions are irrelevant. Nobody cares about patents that are only applicable to 5MHz supercomputers nowadays.

Yes, I was exaggerating, and you're absolutely right that the obsolescence rate of patents in electronics is increasing far faster than the expiration rate of patents, so when thy finally expire, they're essentially worthless. (N.B. there are a lot of people who are eager to build NES and SNES systems as soon as the patents expire. But this is far more of a "niche" interest than actual interest in advancing technology, and innovation.)

I remember in my history of engineering class, they talked about how the

Hmm the GIF patents expiring were a pretty big deal (but not due to the technological superiority, just because everyone had a lot of those files) and Apple's expired font hinting [wikipedia.org] patents are still relevant as well, but those are the only ones I can remember, which is a pretty bad ratio for the number of software patents expiring all of the time.

Hmm the GIF patents expiring were a pretty big deal (but not due to the technological superiority, just because everyone had a lot of those files) and Apple's expired font hinting [wikipedia.org] patents are still relevant as well, but those are the only ones I can remember, which is a pretty bad ratio for the number of software patents expiring all of the time.

True, I will say that the things that truly deserve to be patentable will be relevant once the patent expires. Perhaps that would be a better test for patentability? "Will this invention still be relevant once the patent expires?"

Of course, much like making the perfect task scheduler for a computer requires it to be prescient, I doubt such a question would actually be workable...

Patents were never designed to do any such thing. It may have been post hoc rationalized as something to increase inventiveness

In the US, at least, this just isn't true, since the legal justification for patents (and copryights, and trademarks) is spelled out in the Constitution: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts..." It's true, of course, that any rational person can now see that the arcane, jerry-rigged, and corrupt body of IP law doesn't actually work to that end, but the intention was clear enough. And in fact, I'd argue that patents on physical inventions do serve the stated purpose. It's when we allow pa

So, patents never existed prior to the US Constitution, so thereby, when declared in the US Constitution it declares clearly the purpose and design of patents ab initio?

Or could it be that the post hoc rationalization of the purpose of the patent (as a meme) already existed, and was widely already propagated by the time the US Constitution was written, and that in a vein attempt to convince themselves of the purpose of a tool, they declare it loudly and explicitly without regard to the original design?

(Like many kinds of stained glass that we no longer know how to make, because no one passed it on.)(...)this of course has the obvious effect of stunting the development and innovation cycle, because you can't use other people's ideas once they're actually available

So how exactly could you use that stained glass technique? Oh right, it was never made available. If it had been patented, it must have been disclosed immediately, it'd be a monopoly on them for 20 years but people could understand what you did and start thinking of improvements or variations that wouldn't be covered.

And there is really the biggest reason I don't think patents have much value anymore, who actually reads patents to learn something? Nobody, just lawyers and patent trolls. If there's no trade

How are (new) submarine patents possible? AFAIU, a few years ago the USPTO came in to line with the rest (or at least most) of the world in that a patent application automatically becomes public 18 months after filing. Prior to that, (again AFAIU), it only became public when granted, and hence submariners would keep tweaking their application so it stayed in the exam process until a time that suited them.

OMG, I wish there was a patent on making lame jokes (of the form: I wish there was a patent on XXX). Then assholes (like me) who make these pathetic attempts at humour would get sued into bankruptcy. I know there's no shortage of prior art (see any/. thread mentioning patents for last 10 years), but that never stopped anyone.

Tax loophole patents are great!The problem isn't the patents, it's the fact that loopholes exist at all.At least patenting the loopholes makes sure the tax office knows what tricks are used, making it easier the close them.

The problem is that the law has become a game. Whether an action harms society is not important - only whether you can successfully argue that it isn't covered by the law.

I know somebody who teaches ethics and he says that lawyers are the worst students. They'll come up with scenarios and ask for a "ruling" on whether it is ethical. Then they'll tweak some aspect of the scenario and repeat the question, with the goal of optimizing the scenario to

So when someone invents a cunning method to combine existing applications, that he may patent. But when someone else does exactly that and it is against the interest of the lawmakers, then the law gets quickly patched, but of course only to favour lawmakers.

No, it doesn't put them out of a job. And where it does, the money stays in companies that are trying to innovate. For each lawyer that leaves employment, you'll probably have 10 more in productive companies that don't lose their job as their company doesn't get bogged down in a legal mire over spurious claims.If some part of the system is broken (and it is), fix it. This may be the first of the cracks in the "Business Process" patent crap tht starts the path to getting the ridiculously inappropriate sof